The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
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Wednesday, July 16, 2003
EDITOR'S NOTE: COMIC-CON INTERNATIONAL
The Continuum will provide full coverage direct from Comic-Con International this week in San Diego.
Look for the site to break format a bit with more than once-a-day updates throughout the week and weekend.
SPIDER-MAN ANIMATED UPDATE
The Continuum has obtained loglines and images from this Friday's episodes of MTV's Spider-Man, which airs at 10 p.m. with back-to-back episodes.
The first episode is "Keeping Secrets."
Here's how the episode is described:
Spider-Man (Neil Patrick Harris) catches The Talon (Eve), a female thief responsible for a series of high-risk robberies in the city, in the act of robbing a high-rise apartment. While The Talon gets the best of Spider-Man and escapes, Spider-Man sees her face without her masking goggles.
Meanwhile Harry Osborn(Ian Ziering), best friend and roommate of Peter Parker, has been keeping to himself for the past few weeks and Peter and
Mary Jane Watson (Lisa Loeb) are concerned. Concern turns to excitement when Harry reveals he's been seeing someone he really likes, and wants to introduce her to Peter and MJ over dinner. When Harry's new
girlfriend Cheyenne Tate (Eve) arrives she turns out to be The Talon but
only Peter is aware! Fearing Cheyenne / The Talon will ultimately hurt his
friend Harry, Peter -- as Spider-Man -- tries to convince The Talon to
change her ways. Ultimately, a confrontation takes place between The Talon,
Spider-Man and the police. The Talon is freaked out when Spider-Man calls
out her real name (Cheyenne) during the melee and she panics and disappears
into the night. Later, Cheyenne calls a perplexed Harry to tell him she's
leaving town, maybe for good and she can't explain why.
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The second episode is "Law of the Jungle."
Here's how the episode is described:
Peter Parker (Neil Patrick Harris) earns much needed cash by working at the lab for his professor, Doc Connors (Rob Zombie), a world class scientist. Doc Connors is studying reptilian DNA for its regenerative powers. This is extremely important to Doc Connors because he lost an arm in an industrial accident at Oscorp years before. Meanwhile, as the year anniversary of the death of Norman Osborn approaches, Harry Osborn (Ian Ziering) reluctantly asks Peter and Mary Jane Watson (Lisa Loeb) for help sorting through his father's personal effects. Back at the lab, Doc Connors secretively injects himself with reptilian DNA that not only stimulates his arm stump to grow again but also has the undesired effect of slowly changing Doc Connors into an angry, vengeful Lizard. As the serum effects the Doc's / Lizard's brain, he begins seeking revenge on those who have harmed him and next on his list is Harry unless Spider-Man is able to stop his beloved professor in time.
IMAGE COMICS FOR OCTOBER
Image Comics has released its solicitation information for October.
For a complete rundown, with images, CLICK HERE.
WIZARD WORLD LOS ANGELES
Wizard Conventions has announced a new West Coast Show. The inaugural Wizard World Los Angeles will be held at the Long Beach Convention Center, March 19-21, 2004.
Wizard World Los Angeles joins the previously announced slate of Wizard World shows, including Wizard World East, Wizard World Chicago and Wizard World Texas.
"When we started expanding our events, we always knew that we wanted to be in Los Angeles since it's the heart of the comics-to-films movement, and with more films in production than ever before, now is the right time for a Wizard World show in L.A. This new event enables us and our marketing partners to truly reach a national audience through our network of events," said Gareb Shamus, Chairman and CEO, Wizard Conventions, Inc.
Wizard World events in 2003 will draw more than 75,000 people, an increase of more than 40 percent versus 2002. Wizard World Chicago, August 8-10, is expected to draw over 40,000 people. It will be followed by Wizard World Texas, which will premiere Nov. 21-23. In 2004, following Wizard World Los Angeles, will be Wizard World East, entering its third year.
IDW TEAMS WITH KONAMI ON SILENT HILL
IDW Publishing has joined with Konami, one of the biggest international video game companies, to bring the psychological horror of the video game Silent Hill to comic books.
IDW plans to begin publishing Silent Hill comics at the end of 2003 and early 2004 in various formats. According to the publisher, it will work closely with Konami and "to insure that the Silent Hill comics will maintain the same air of anything-can-happen suspense and outright terror that have made the games so popular."
"When the first two Silent Hill games were released, I played them straight through without stopping, and I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of the third game in the series. I think the world of Silent Hill is a natural for comics and I'm very happy that IDW Publishing is going to get chance to work with Konami on developing them," said Ted Adams, publisher of IDW. "We very carefully choose the companies we want to work with and Konami has been on our short list since day one."
Kaz Nirasawa, International Product Manager for the Konami Corporation, added, "Konami is very excited and pleased to have IDW develop a Silent Hill comic."
Accumulated sales for the Silent Hill video game series have been marked at 3 million units worldwide.
CHIMERA ANIMATED PRESENTATION
Through a special arrangement with the Digital Animation And Visual Effects School (the DAVE School), San Diego Comic-Con attendees will be able to view a six-minute CG animated feature based on CrossGen Entertainment's sci-fi comic-book series Chimera.
Created by 2003 graduates from the DAVE School, the film will be shown during the "CrossGen: Tomorrow's Technology...Today!" panel on Friday at 5 p.m. and on plasma monitors in the CrossGen booth.
Since opening in 2000 at the Universal Studios Orlando, the DAVE School offers a training center in the art and science of computer animation for television, film and additional mediums.
After meeting DAVE School owner Jeff Schultz at the 2002 MegaCon, CrossGen VP of Special Projects Brandon Peterson -- who penciled, inked, colored and, with Ron Marz, co-wrote Chimera -- suggested that the mini-series would offer the students a challenging and rewarding opportunity. After the project was secured, Peterson then worked extensively with the students on the film's production.
"Chimera was a very personal project for me, so seeing the characters come alive was thrilling," Peterson said. "The DAVE School did an excellent job, and everyone who's seen the trailer has told me how well they captured the look, feel and story of the mini-series."
Chimera, which will be collected into a graphic novel in November,
tells the story of Sara, a supposedly normal woman hunted through the galaxy by the insidious Chimeran Empire. As readers soon discover, Sara's unique genetic structure not only makes her a target, but it also makes her a
living weapon. The animated feature shows the resulting explosive battle on
the frozen ice-mining planet of Severan as Sara fights a battalion of the
Empire's armored forces.
SUPERFOLKS FROM ABOUT COMICS
A new limited edition of the Superfolks prose novel by Robert Mayer will be released by About Comics in December, it was announced on Wednesday.
The influential 1977 novel is being brought back into print for the first time in decades and will feature a new cover by Dave Gibbons and a new introduction.
Here's how About Comics describes the book:
"Superfolks tells the tale of the last survivor of the planet Cronk, the greatest superhero of his time. However, the time of superheroes has passed, and he has retired from action. When a world crisis causes him to dig out his old and ill-fitting costume one more time, he is split between the exciting world of adventure and the middle-class and middle-aged suburban existence he has settled into. Can he ferret out the identity of the dark master behind the crisis while dealing with his own confusions and lusts?"
Kurt Busiek said that "without Superfolks, I doubt there'd ever have been an Astro City."
"I'd been hearing about Superfolks for years," said Nat Gertler of About Comics. "But when I finally dug up a copy and read it, it wasn't just entertaining, it was a revelation. Here's a novelist that was pushing the superhero form in ways that comic books never had. When word got out that I had a copy, I had various people in the comics business asking to borrow my copy. The novel is hard to find in the used book market, and when you do find it the price is often over $100. A good book, an important book, and one that's in demand - as a publisher, I couldn't ask for anything more. Unfortunately, I could only get the rights for a limited edition, so we're selling only 2,000 copies, and those are earmarked exclusively to direct market comics shops and convention sales."
Author Mayer is a former journalist and won the National Headliner Award as the U.S.'s most outstanding feature columnist. His non-fiction Notes of a Baseball Dreamer: A Memoir has recently been reissued by Houghton Mifflin.
Superfolks will be 175 pages and will cost $19.95.
COMIC-CON ROUNDUP
Several companies are arranging for special products and programming for this week's Comic-Con International in San Diego.
Following is a roundup of some of the recent announcements:
Palisades Toys will debut its Transformers polystone statue line on Wednesday night at Comic-Con International.
To commemorate the 20th Anniversary of Transformers, Palisades Toys and Hasbro, Inc. have joined forces to introduce a commemorative line of collectable statues that capture the spirit, detail and animation of the original Generation One toys and Transformer comic book series from Dreamwave.
The statues will be hitting shelves in late 2003. Others will follow at 4 - 6 week intervals. The 2004 lineup is as follows: Megatron, Acree, Soundwave, Grimlock, Starscream, Wheel Jack, Shockwave and Red Alert.
* X Concepts has set Comic-Con for the release of futuristic medieval action sports figures called S.K.U.M.M.T (Super Kinetic Ultra Magnetic Men) it was announced by Niveque Storm, product manager and writer. Storm will be signing the first three issues of the SKUMM comic throughout Comic-Con at the booth and will be dressed in full futuristic SKUMM armor as seen in the comic.
BRIEFLY
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